


Space

by Flora (florahart)



Category: Stargate Universe
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-25
Updated: 2010-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-14 02:32:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/144379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/florahart/pseuds/Flora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being the commander of a situation like that of Destiny doesn't leave one with many outlets.  Young is feeling it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Space

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Callie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Callie/gifts).



> So, I didn't do anything wild and crazy like check my canon on this little treatlet. Sorry if that means I have canon failishness.

There's a lot of empty space outside.

Not empty. Full, really, if the question is anything on the order of how hard is it to steer the ship, or how long can they go in any direction before something--a current, a comet, a planet--gets in their way. But space is really goddamn big, and still, Everett can't quite find the part of it that allows for his current headspace.

He looks out the big window and wishes he had anything that tasted good. Liquor. Coffee. A Rice Krispie treat.

Only two of those are things he'd admit wanting to pretty much everyone, including his wife, his CO, and God.

Which doesn't explain why the _two_ people in the world who know he wants puffed rice coated with marshmallow goo like a fucking _five_ -year-old are out here in the middle of Desolation, Universe, 90210, and one of them is busy having his own fucked-up relationship drama and the other is... unavailable to him.

He glances over his shoulder. No one bothers him between crises, by and large, but seeing as how there are crises roughly every thirty minutes (no, actually, he did the math; in the time they've been on Destiny, the average period between situations for which FUBAR is either barely adequate or completely _in_ adequate is something like nineteen hours. He wonders what the literature says about optimization of command staffs when there's no support, no command, no fucking anything, and a nineteen-hour crisis period). Anyway, seeing as how at any time there might be something, and it's all-- _all_ \--on him, he looks over his shoulder a lot. Just as well; right now he's pissed off and not fit company for man or beast.

Or for TJ. Definitely for TJ. Who really goddamn needs him to have his shit together and she's letting him have space. Space. Ha. As if there's a shortage. But she's giving him time, more than he deserves, and he doesn't know what to do with it.

She's the one that needs support, right? Oh, he does too, but if he was never going to acknowledge that baby, then he doesn't get to claim any particular emotional baggage.

His eyes water and he wonders how many times it's shown on his face that he's a jackass and a coward and an idiot.

Probably every day. It's a wonder everyone hasn't mutinied. Well, no, they have. It's a wonder it hasn't happened more often.

"Everett?"

He doesn't turn. He clears his throat instead and rasps, "Yeah?" Practically no one _but_ TJ has called him Everett in months--and that's only in specific situations--and he hungers for relationships that aren't based on hierarchical anything or command anything or, as in the case of his ongoing interactions with Rush and Camile, base disgust. He's not sure that's on the table, but being hungry and being in possession of a table aren't particularly connected things.

"I wondered..." She sounds like she has something in her throat, which she always does, lately, and it makes his tonsils ache and feel as though they're swelling with sympathy.

"Yeah?" He's even raspier the second time. He risks a glance back in the dark once the door is closed. "What do you need?"

"Oh, the usual." She gives a choked little laugh he feels in his gut. "You know."

"Yeah. I know."

She comes and stands next to him at the big window. "About the...Riley?"

"I don't want to talk about it, TJ."

"I know. But you definitely can't talk about it with Camile."

His chuckle is just as choked and pathetic as hers was, but also there's this warmth in his chest, in his belly. "No, you can say that again."

He can see the nod in his peripheral vision.

"It seems like everything I need to talk about, there's no one..." He stops, because he does _not_ get to complaint to her about being alone. No. "TJ, I didn't, I could've--"

"Don't. Sir."

"We're alone, TJ. You can call me Everett."

"Yep." She rocks back and forth a little in her boots. "Still, if I call you Everett in any conversation about...this, I'm going to, uh." She pauses long enough he glances over, but she's standing pretty much at attention even if her eyes are way too bright. Talking to him is obviously as hard for her as it is for him. "I don't think I can fix the part of me that's pissed off about everything. Sir."

"Yeah, I hear you." He turns his body toward her as well. "I'm sorry, you know. About a hundred things, but I know that doesn't help, and I know I shouldn't ask you to, what's the word I want? Push aside what you want for what I want. Again."

"What is it you want to ask, Sir?"

He shakes his head. "I am a pathetic bastard. I know. But could you just... could you call me by my name sometimes?"

She looks over, and standing at attention or not, there's a tear track down her cheek on the other side of her nose. She looks back at the window. "We stopped being friends, Sir. Didn't we?"

"Yeah. I'm pretty sure that's my fault."

"Yeah."

"Thanks."

"What?"

"For not pretending it's not."

"Never any danger of that, Sir."

It's not his name, but the tone is disrespectful and almost teasing, and it helps.

It helps a lot.

"Can we maybe try being friends again?" He puts up a hand toward her, not to grab or touch, just a simple 'stop' signal. "Not like we were, but like we were before we...were. Wow. That didn't make any sense."

"Not really, but maybe it did." She purses her lips. "I've wanted to ask, and since I guess it can't really come off as a threat now, I think I will. Do you really think it would have been that bad, for people to know? Once it became clear we weren't going home any time soon?"

He shrugs. "Hell if I know, TJ. But what I do know is, I need, desperately, for people who don't hate my guts, which I'm hoping still maybe sort of includes you, to tell me when I need my ass kicked." He pauses. "Getting my ass-kickings from mutineers, insurgents, and Rush is getting old."

She chuckled again, a little less rusty this time, and didn't say anything.

Still, she stayed and looked out the window with him.


End file.
